Thursday, May 21, 2009

Thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me


28Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed thee.

29And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake,

30Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.



Luke 18:28-30.


Title: Luke 18:22
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Fed's economic forecast worsens


Central bank now expects unemployment to rise to a range of 9.2% to 9.6% this year. Fed also predicts a sharper decline in GDP than it had forecast in January.

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: May 20, 2009: 4:20 PM ET


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Federal Reserve's latest forecasts for the U.S. economy are gloomier than the ones released three months earlier, with an expectation for higher unemployment and a steeper drop in economic activity.

The Fed's forecasts, released as part of the minutes from its April meeting, show that its staff now expects the unemployment rate to rise to between 9.2% and 9.6% this year. The central bank had forecast in January that the jobless rate would be in a range of 8.5% to 8.8%, but the unemployment rate topped that in April, hitting 8.9%.

Japanese economy shrinks, again

The Fed also now expects the gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economic activity, to post a drop of between 1.3% and 2% this year. It had previously expected only a 0.5% to 1.3% decline.

At the April meeting, the Fed decided to once again leave its key federal funds rate near 0%, a level it has been at since last December. The central bank also announced that it did not plan on increasing purchasing more long-term Treasury notes anytime soon.

The Fed disclosed plans to begin buying $300 billion's worth of such Treasurys in March in order to try and keep long-term rates down and boost economic activity.

But according to the minutes, some members of the central bank's policy committee indicated they were open to increasing its purchases of Treasury notes and mortgage securities as a way of spurring more lending.

Treasury prices rallied after the minutes were released, pushing their yield, which moves in the opposite direction, down to 3.18%.

Stocks, which have moved sharply higher during the past two months on hopes that the recession may soon be ending, fell Wednesday afternoon.

According to the minutes, Fed members did indicate they expected GDP to increase slightly in the second half of this year. However, it would not be enough to overcome the anticipated declines in the first half. GDP shrunk more than 6% in the first quarter.

Policymakers acknowledged that there were some better economic readings in the period leading up to the April meeting, but added that they were not convinced the economy was out of the woods yet.

In the minutes, Fed members indicated that there are a number of factors that "would be likely to restrain the pace of economic recovery over the medium term" and added that the credit crunch would "recede only gradually" and that "households would likely remain cautious" in their spending.

Fed members expressed concerns about rising problems in the commercial real estate market as well, indicating that this could cause further problems for financial institutions still struggling with the effects of the collapse of home prices and rising mortgage defaults.

The Fed also reduced its GDP targets for 2010 and 2011, but the central banks still expects the economy to grow in both years.

Rich Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research, said that the Fed's new forecasts were "more of a reality check than a revision," given the deterioration in the labor market and overall economy since January.

But he and other economists said it also appeared from the minutes that the Fed is pleased with how the economy has started to respond to the steps it has taken, including the purchases of mortgages and Treasurys.

"I read [the minutes] as 'We think it's working, let's wait a few months to see how it plays out,'" said Gus Faucher - director of macroeconomics at Moody's Economy.com. He added that it did not seem like the Fed felt a "sense of urgency" to increase the scope of its Treasury purchase program.

And Yamarone said it's important to remember that the forecasts and minutes are three weeks old, and that economic readings since the meeting, including home sales and the rate of job losses, have generally showed signs of improvement.

"These minutes look like they have a bleaker assessment, but things were darker then," he said. "I can't say it's an accurate interpretation of their outlook today. I think that would be a little more favorable."

First Published: May 20, 2009: 2:17 PM ET




Competitive Spirits: Latin America's New Religious Economy


Competitive Spirits: Latin America's New Religious Economy - Publisher's Marketing:

"For over four centuries the Catholic Church enjoyed a religious monopoly in Latin America in which potential rivals were repressed or outlawed. Latin Americans were born Catholic and the only real choice they had was whether to actively practice the faith. Taking advantage of the legal disestablishment of the Catholic Church between the late 1800s and the early 1900s, Pentecostals almost single-handedly built a new pluralist religious economy. By the 1950s, many Latin Americans were free to choose from among the hundreds of available religious "products," a dizzying array of religious options that range from the African-Brazilian religion of Umbanda to the New Age group known as the Vegetable Union.

R. Andrew Chesnut shows how the development of religious pluralism over the past half-century has radically transformed the "spiritual economy" of Latin America. In order to thrive in this new religious economy, says Chesnut, Latin American spiritual "firms" must develop an attractive product and know how to market it to popular consumers. Three religious groups, he demonstrates, have proven to be the most skilled competitors in the new unregulated religious economy. Protestant Pentecostalism, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, and African diaspora religions such as Brazilian Candomble and Haitian Vodou have emerged as the most profitable religious producers. Chesnut explores the general effects of a free market, such as introduction of consumer taste and product specialization, and shows how they have played out in the Latin American context. He notes, for example, that women make up the majority of the religious consumer market, and explores how the three groups have developed tosatisfy women's tastes and preferences. Moving beyond the Pentecostal boom and the rise and fall of liberation theology, Chesnut provides a fascinating portrait of the Latin American religious landscape."

Call number: BL2540 .C48 2003



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Report Details Abuses in Irish Church-Run Reformatories


By SHARON OTTERMAN
Published: May 20, 2009



Related
Executive Summary of the Report (PDF)
Full Report:
PDF HTML Format (External Links)


A commission investigating child abuse in Ireland’s Roman Catholic-run state orphanages, reformatories and schools released a scathing report on Wednesday, documenting widespread physical, sexual and emotional abuse of thousands of children over 60 years.


Government inspectors failed to stop chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation in the state sponsored institutions. In some schools, the report found, “a high level of ritualized beating was routine.”

The commission, which began its work in 2000, investigated the fate of more than 30,000 children consigned to a network of church-run institutions schools between the 1920s and the 1980s, when most of them were closed. The Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse investigated complaints from more than 1,700 individuals — many of them now more than 70 years old.

The 2,600-page report, released Wednesday, seems likely to further undercut the moral authority of the Catholic church in a once devout country where attendance at mass has plunged over the last decade. It found that a climate of fear permeated most of the institutions, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment at the hands of priests and nuns. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating or sexual assault was coming from.

“Physical and emotional abuse and neglect were features of the institutions,” the report concluded. “Sexual abuse occurred in many of them, particularly boys’ institutions. Schools were run in a severe, regimented manner that imposed unreasonable and oppressive discipline on children and even on staff.”

The nation’s Department of Education, responsible for supervising the schools, failed to protect the children, the report found, deferring to the religious orders running the institutions day-to-day, chiefly the Christian Brothers for boys and the Sisters of Mercy for girls.

“The deferential and submissive attitude of the Department of Education towards the Congregations compromised its ability to carry out its statutory duty of inspection and monitoring of the schools,” the report said.

The authorities mostly turned a deaf ear to the reports of abuse, particularly sexual predation by priests and inmates in the boys’ institutions, even when the victims came to them with complaints, the commission said,

“The management did not listen to or believe children when they complained of the activities of some of the men who had responsibility for their care," the commission found. "At best, the abusers were moved, but nothing was done about the harm done to the child. At worst, the child was blamed and seen as corrupted by the sexual activity, and was punished severely."

The commission, headed by an Irish judge, Sean Ryan, took nine years to release its findings because of delays from church lawsuits, missing documentation and alleged government obstruction. Its original chairwoman, Judge Mary Laffoy, resigned in 2004 after what she said was obstruction by the Education Department. Critics of the commission say the department never fully cooperated with the investigation.

Students were committed to the network of reformatories for infractions as minor as truancy and petty theft, while others, such as unwed teenage mothers and the children of unwed mothers, were sent there by their families. The government paid 27 church orders to run the more than 250 institutions covered by the report.

Many of the 30,000 children ordered into the system had no access to education, and were instead forced to work as virtual prisoners until age 16, victims of the abuse have testified.

John Kelly, the coordinator of the Irish organization, Survivors of Child Abuse, spent 1965 to 1967 in the Daingean reformatory after he was accused of stealing a bar of chocolate as a young teenager. He said he suffered sexual and physical abuse.

“The state abdicated responsibility for the children, they said these people could do what they like,” he said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “And that’s exactly what they did.”

“I feel angry and bitter that we feel deceived and cheated. There is no closure from this report.”

Prime Minister Bertie Ahern authorized the inquiry after issuing an apology in 1999 on behalf of the Irish state to thousands of orphans and other children who were abused in the institutions. It was established as a truth-finding body, with the intention of finding ways for survivors to best deal with their wounds.

The report does not name the accused because of a lawsuit from the Christian Brothers, the religious order than ran many of the boy’s reformatories. Many of the accused priests, brothers and nuns are long dead.

In 2003, a different government-appointed board authorized government compensation for the child victims of the schools as part of a controversial government-church deal in which the taxpayer, rather than church authorities, footed most of the bill. That committee has distributed almost $1.5 billion in compensation and legal fees to 12,500 people, and 2,000 claims remain pending.

The commission struggled largely unsuccessfully to secure cooperation from the 27 religious orders and the Education Department, which possesses most of the school, reformatory, workhouse and orphanage records. In the end, it went largely on the testimony of a large number of victims, which it found credible.

The report said only two orders had fully cooperated with the commission. It said others demanded proof from victims for all allegations, making the commission’s work ”more protracted and costly than it should be.”

During the commission’s investigations, hundreds of children held in the system traveled back to Ireland from as far away as the United States and Australia to describe childhoods of terror and intimidation.

The commission leaves open the question of whether individual government officials or inspectors, as well as the members of religious orders who committed the abuse, should be prosecuted.


*Note: Highlights added...
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Crux Ansata - An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church





Crux Ansata - An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church
Genre Religious/Political/Historical
First Published 1943
Republished after 1960 Yes
Currently in Print ?
Availability Uncommon
Number of pages 116 (Agora, 1944)
My rating 3 and 1/2 stars

Wells asks: "Why do we not bomb Rome?"

Written during the height of WW2, Crux Ansata (Latin: "The Cross with a handle") is an uncomprimising attack on Roman Catholicism and Pope Pius XII. Indeed some will contend that Wells goes too far, but this book, it must be remembered was part of the war effort. When it was written, Wells had recently retired from the position of Minister of Allied Propaganda, but that official retirement did not stop him continuing that effort.

During those grim days of bombing and terror, many wealthy people fled London to the safety of country estates. But H.G. Wells refused to leave London. He knew that shared suffering between the economic classes was key to the war effort. He would not leave knowing that the poor had no choice but to stay and he meant to shame his fellow wealthy Londoners by his resolve. His front door was blown in several times by German bombs, and even though he was in his late 70's and ill health, he joined in the regular patrols of the war-time streets for fires. It was under this sort of duress that he wrote Crux Ansata.

In Crux, Wells uses his pulpit of public teacher to add fuel to the fire of British morale. He praises the independant spirit of the Englishman and denounces the "spreading octopus" of the Church and its "Shinto alliance." However, the bulk of this book remains a very readable history of Christianity, not unlike the style of his famous Outline of History, though it suffers slightly from a forced quality, almost as if he were tired of reciting. It has occasional long quotes by other authors, but as was necessitated by the difficulties of war time, it is a short book; terse and to the point. There are times though when Crux Ansata dwindles into vagueness, and one gets a brief passing feeling that H.G.'s mental sharpness was begining to errode. Despite this, however, Crux has its share of powerful quotes that, in part, save it from being merely a piece of wartime propoganda.

"Christianity early ceased to be purely prophetic and creative. It entangled itself with archaic traditions of human sacrifice, with Mithraic blood-cleansing, with priestcraft as ancient as human society, and with elaborate doctrines about the structure of the divinity. The gory entrail-searching forefinger of the Etruscan pontifex maximus presently overshadowed the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth..." (Crux Ansata, page 12).

"Even in comparison with Fascism and the Nazi adventure, Roman Catholicism is a broken and utterly desperate thing, capable only of malignant mischief in our awakening world" (ibid, page 79).

"Watch a priest in a public conveyance. He is fighting against disturbing suggestions. He must not look at women lest he think of sex. He must not look about him, for reality, that is to say the devil, waits to seduce him on every hand. You see him muttering his protective incantations, avoiding your eye. He is suppressing "sinful" thoughts" (ibid, page 113).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Review written by Geoffrey Doyle.
HTML conversion by Edward "Ted" Doyle.

If you are aware of any errors on this page, please contact Geoff Doyle or Ted Doyle.

Return to H. G. Wells Bibliography
Last modified on Thursday, 12-Aug-1999 14:44:09 EDT


Source:http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~tdoyle/hgwells/crux.shtml

Our man at Bilderberg: Let's salt the slug in 2010




Publicity is pure poison to the world's global power elite. So we should all turn up to its next annual meeting with a few more tubs of the stuff, writes Charlie Skelton


Ten years ago, when Jon Ronson dared to report on Bilderberg, he found himself "chased by mysterious men in dark glasses through Portugal". He was scared for his safety.

"When I phoned the British embassy and asked them to explain to the powerful secret society that had set their goons on me that I was essentially a humorous journalist out of my depth, I wasn't being funny. I was being genuinely desperate," he wrote. I know exactly how he feels.

Only out of sheer desperation did I try to arrest one of the goons following me and then follow my flimsy leads up the Greek police ladder, finally catching one of the goons wet-handed in the lavatory of the department of government security. And only then did I know the extent of Bilderberg's paranoia: they had set the state police on me.

So who is the paranoid one? Me, hiding in stairwells, watching the pavement behind me in shop windows, staying in the open for safety? Or Bilderberg, with its two F-16s, circling helicopters, machine guns, navy commandos and policy of repeatedly detaining and harassing a handful of journalists? Who's the nutter? Me or Baron Mandelson? Me or Paul Volker, the head of Obama's economic advisory board? Me or the president of Coca-Cola?

It makes me want to spit, the absurdity of it: the cost, not just in Greek tax euros, but on my peace of mind, of having (conservatively) a dozen Jack Bauers assigned to tailing me. I hope the operation at least had a cool name: Operation Catastrophic Overreaction, perhaps.

So, yes, Bilderberg's paranoia is half to blame. But there is another reason why Ronson was hounded round Portugal, why I was chased round Greece, and why on Sunday the Romanian journalist Paul Dorneanu was strip-searched by goons in Vouliagmeni, held for four hours and forced to purge his camera of images (for the crime of trying to film the delegates leaving). And it is this: they can harass and detain us only because so few of us are there.

Just now, I searched for "Bilderberg" on Reuters. I did the same on AP. And this is what I turned up:


Publicity is pure salt to the giant slug of Bilderberg. So I suggest next year we turn up with a few more tubs. If the mainstream press refuses to give proper coverage to this massive annual event, then interested citizens will have to: a people's media. Find the biggest lens you can and join us for Bilderberg 2010. No idea where it's going to be, but there's usually a few days' notice.

We'll have a barbecue selling bilderburgers (with extra lies), and we will set up our own press centre near the cordon. Get some lanyards. Email me at bilderberg2010@yahoo.co.uk and we'll start prepping.

Meanwhile, petition newspapers to send a correspondent. Petition your MP to ask a question in parliament. This happened a few days ago in Holland. Citing an article by Paul Joseph Watson on prisonplanet.com, a Dutch MP asked in parliament about the involvement of the prime minister, the minister for European affairs and Queen Beatrix, asking them to make public any items that were on the agenda, and whether the ratification of the Lisbon treaty was discussed.

I've got a couple of questions I would like to ask Peter Mandelson, mainly about the freedom of the press and what he thinks about a Guardian journalist being detained, shoved and intimidated by the Greek state police on his behalf. Mandelson's office has confirmed his attendance at this year's meeting: "Yes, Lord Mandelson attended Bilberberg. He found it a valuable conference."

Oh, good. Maybe he stole a bathrobe. Peter has been a busy baron these last few days: all that beach volleyball and global strategising, then straight back to address the Google Zeitgeist conference on Monday, where he talked about "the need for regulation" of the internet. "There are worries about the impact of the internet on our society," he said. I bet he is worried; but not half as worried as I am about "the need for regulation".

But these worries are small potatoes compared with the biggest concern Bilderberg 09 has given me. My experience over the last several days in Greece has granted me a single, diamond-hard opinion. Meaning I now have two: that John McEnroe is the greatest sportsman of all time; and that we must fight, fight, fight, now – right now, this second, with every cubic inch of our souls – to stop identity cards.

I can tell you right now that the argument "If I've done nothing wrong, why would I worry about showing who I am?" is hogwash. Worse than that, it's horse hockey. It's all about the power to ask, the obligation to show, the justification of one's existence, the power of the asker over the subservience of the asked. (Did you know that most Greek police don't wear a number? This is an obligation that goes one way.)

I have learned this from the random searches, detentions, angry security goon proddings and thumped police desks without number that I've had to suffer on account of Bilderberg: I have spent the week living in a nightmare possible future and many different terrible pasts. I have had the very tiniest glimpse into a world of spot checks and unchecked security powers. And it has left me shaken. It has left me, literally, bruised.

I can tell you this from personal experience: the onus upon the individual to carry with them some external proof of their identity is transformative of his or her status as a human being. The identity card turns you from a free citizen into a suspect. It is a spanner with which to beat the individual around the head. It is the end of everything. And how much easier to put all that information inside a microchip so you don't have to carry around that pesky card all the time. How much more efficient!

Listen. I don't care if you don't love liberty. For the love of yourself: fight identity cards. Don't let them happen. STOP IDENTITY CARDS. Stop identity cards. And while you're about it: stop identity cards. And that's all I have to say, you will be delighted to know, about Bilderberg 2009. Oh, except for a giant word of thanks to everyone who has written supportive or interested comments on these blogposts (let's meet up for a proper debrief!) And one little correction: for the record, Kenneth Clarke's office has said he was "in his constituency" at the weekend, not at the Astir Palace doing sambuca shots with the CEO of Airbus. Just in case he remembers differently when asked again.




Amagama is no more: Prophecy2day ended abruptly!


This was my last published post (though I posted yesterday):


Prophecy2day
The Three Angels’ Messages - Revelation 14 1And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in ...
1 week ago


When I went to check why my latest post hadn't updated, I found this notice:

Amagama is no more

Dear Amagama user
After much consideration and consultation, we decided to close Amagama. The platform had very few active users, and we did not believe that it would be worthwhile trying to save it from its technical problems.

Amagama’s biggest challenge was spam blogs. These spam blogs - or “splogs” - created thousands of accounts and put too much pressure on the system to keep it running efficiently. (And sometimes impossible to keep it running at all.) As a result, Amagama suffered from poor performance over its lifespan, which made it unattractive to users.

On a personal note, I am truly sorry that we have had to take this difficult decision. Amagama has a long history in the South African blogisphere, and this closure marks the end of that history.


Amagama closed on Wednesday, 20 May 2009.
Kind regards

Jason Norwood-Young

Technical Manager

M&G Online




453



This implies that my blog Prophecy2Day (arsenio.amagama.com) no longer exists.

Sorry, South Africaans!

Thanks! J, etc!

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For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God


1 Corinthians 3

1And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

2I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.

3For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?

4For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

5Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?

6I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.

7So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

8Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.

9For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.

10According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

11For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

12Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;

13Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.

14If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

15If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

16Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

17If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

18Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.

19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.

20And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

21Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are your's;

22Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are your's;

23And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.
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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Aftershock felt in downtown Los Angeles


Tuesday, May 19, 2009

(05-19) 17:05 PDT Los Angeles, CA (AP) --
A small but widely felt aftershock jolted the Los Angeles region Tuesday, two days after a magnitude-4.7 earthquake struck, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries


The magnitude-4.1 temblor hit at 3:49 p.m. and was centered 10 miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles near the Los Angeles International Airport, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

No damage has been reported and there has been no increase in emergency calls, Los Angeles City Fire spokesman Brian Humphrey said.

The aftershock occurred near the epicenter of Sunday's magnitude-4.7 quake that caused strong shaking in the beach towns south of the airport. Only light damage was reported.

Tuesday's quake was felt in the high desert city of Palmdale about 50 miles to the north and in San Diego, about 120 miles to the south.

It was barely felt at the airport, but emergency workers were checking runways and other airport infrastructure just to make sure nothing was damaged, said airport spokesman Tom Winfrey.

"It was very slight but as a precaution we always do that check," he said.

Esther Robertson, a cashier at a Burlington Coat Factory store near the epicenter in Hawthorne, said customers ran out of the store when the shaking began.

"It was terrifying," she said.

Scientists said the latest rattle was a typical aftershock.

"It's a completely normal sort of pattern," USGS seismologist Lucy Jones said.
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UN chief names Bill Clinton as Haiti envoy




AP – FILE - In this March 10, 2009 file photo, former U.S. President Bill Clinton greets United Nations workers …





1 hr 44 mins ago

Slideshow:Bill Clinton

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The United Nations named former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday as its special envoy to Haiti, with a mission to help the impoverished nation achieve some measure of stability after devastating floods and other crises.

Clinton — who will be paid $1 a year and travel to Haiti several times annually — said he was honored to accept the post.

"I believe Haiti is better positioned to make progress for all its people than at any time since I first visited in 1978," he said in a statement.

"Last year's natural disasters took a great toll, but Haiti's government and people have the determination and ability to 'build back better,' not just to repair the damage done but to lay the foundations for the long term sustainable development that has eluded them for so long," the former president said.

Clinton is popular in Haiti, but the U.N.'s peacekeepers have been widely criticized despite providing the nation with its only real security for years. The peacekeepers have patrolled since 2004 and are training an under-equipped national police force to retake control, but some consider the blue helmets to be an unwanted occupation force.

Having Clinton as the U.N.'s public face in Haiti could temper such sentiment.

Clinton is still well-regarded here for using the threat of U.S. military force to oust a dictatorship in 1994, then sending Army troops and Marines to pave the way for the return of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been deposed in a coup.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also praised the appointment of such "a high-profile envoy," without mentioning their marriage or the requirement that State Department lawyers review Bill Clinton's international activities to avoid conflicts of interest.

"It's the kind of partnership we are looking for across the board," she told reporters at the White House, explaining that she had already been preparing a team to help Haiti. "This is going to be an added bit of leverage and focus for us."

Many poor Haitians — Aristide's power base — still long for their leader's return from exile after he was toppled a second time by a rebellion in 2004.

In March, Clinton toured the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince with the U.N. chief to encourage investment after a year that saw a food crisis, destabilizing riots and four devastating tropical storms. The former president was mobbed by enthusiastic crowds.

The following month, he attended a donors conference in Washington that resulted in pledges of $324 million for the struggling country. Haiti is the hemisphere's poorest nation and has been mired for decades in political and social turmoil.

"I am confident that President Clinton will bring energy, dynamism and focus to the task of mobilizing international support for Haiti's economic recovery and reconstruction," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

Because of the Clintons' marriage, State Department lawyers must approve some of Bill Clinton's international activities under an agreement between the U.S. Senate and the Clinton Foundation, which works in Haiti on a number of issues including health care, AIDS, the environment and economic development.

Haiti does not currently have a special U.N. envoy, and it is not clear what Clinton's duties will be. The Miami Herald, which first reported the appointment, said he will be expected to visit the Caribbean country — a two-hour flight from Miami — at least four times a year.

Clinton visited Haiti as president in 1995 and again in 2003. Hillary Clinton has also visited several times, most recently for an April meeting with President Rene Preval en route to the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed from Washington.


Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090519/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_bill_clinton
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P.S. The Clintons have quite a dossier

Bill: From Georgetown University to University College, Oxford (Britain) as a Rhodes Scholar; To Yale University; Governor of Arkansas to President of the U.S.; From a non-descript function on 125 st. in Harlem to U.N Envoy in Haiti. ???

Hillary: (Synopsis) Yale student paper Editor; Watergate prosecution team; First Lady of Arkansas; First Lady of the U.S.; Senator from New York State; Secretary of State.

NOT FOR NOTHING; BUT , THEY GOT A GOOD RACKET GOING!

Are they prolific, or what? From soups to nuts!

TENNIS ANYONE?

Arsenio,

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As abuse scandals dim, St. Paul lawyer keeps suing

As abuse scandals dim, St. Paul lawyer keeps suing

The Associated Press • May 18, 2009


Read Comments(28)


ST. PAUL — Jeff Anderson, the St. Paul lawyer who’s made a career of suing the Roman Catholic church over sexual abuse by priests, likes to draw a link between that crusade and his youthful devotion to the civil rights and anti-war movements.



Attorney Jeff Anderson is seen April 16 at his office in downtown St. Paul. Anderson has made a career of suing the Roman Catholic Church over sexual abuse by priests. (AP photo)

In the past 25 years, the legal movement Anderson helped launch has produced the kind of tangible results that leaders of other social movements might envy: Catholic dioceses have paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements, some going bankrupt in the process. Hundreds of priests have left the church, some ending up in jail. And cultural awareness of sexual abuse by ministers skyrocketed, prompting more victims to come forward.

“This movement has had a tremendous impact on ordinary Catholic life — the way people see the priesthood and view the Catholic hierarchy,” said Matt Schmalz, a professor of religious studies at the Jesuit-run College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.

For Anderson, that’s not enough. After an explosion of abuse allegations starting in about 2002, the rate of new cases has declined in the past few years. That’s prompted Anderson and his allies to attempt new and different legal maneuvers aimed at keeping church leaders in the courtroom — everything from suing bishops for fraud, to taking aim at statutes of limitations that limit access to lawsuits, to suing the Vatican itself.

The flamboyant Anderson, who has always had a flair for the public relations potential of his work, said the ultimate goal is no less than a fundamental change in the centuries-old leadership structure of the Catholic Church, one that would make everyone from cardinals to parish priests more accountable to their congregations. Critics say his actual goal is much less sweeping.

“I think they’ll continue to pursue reformation as long as it’s economically viable,” said Andrew Eisenzimmer, general counsel to the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese and a frequent sparring partner to Anderson.

In 1983, Anderson filed one of the first sexual abuse lawsuits against the U.S. Roman Catholic Church — pulling a long-simmering problem into the public light. Since then he’s filed thousands of lawsuits, and his St. Paul law firm continues to juggle dozens of cases. He’ll be back in a St. Paul courtroom in a few weeks with a lawsuit charging, among other allegations, that leaders of the St. Paul-Minneapolis and Winona dioceses are guilty of fraud for moving an accused priest from parish to parish despite knowing of abuse allegations against him.


Anderson said it’s hard to estimate how many clients he represents, but said currently it’s between 100 to 200 in 20 different U.S. states. He claims to have lost track of how many millions in damages he’s won from the Roman Catholic Church and other religious institutions over the years, although in 2002, he estimated it was $60 million.


But more than two decades since he started, the number of new abuse claims has slowed noticeably — 803 new claims in 2008, compared to 1,092 in 2002, according to an annual church study.

Church leaders say that’s because of their response to the scandals — everything from background checks on new priests to victim assistance coordinators in dioceses to massive settlements paid to abuse victims. American dioceses have paid more than $2.6 billion in settlements and related expenses since 1950, according to studies commissioned by the U.S. bishops.

Anderson “refuses to acknowledge the things that the church has done,” Eisenzimmer said.

Chief among the goals of church critics is the release the names of every priest that a 2004 church-backed study said were “credibly accused” of abuse since 1950.

“We’re fighting that battle in 10 or 12 states now,” Anderson said — that is, asking judges to force dioceses to release names of credibly accused priests, which could bring forward new victims and more lawsuits.

However, that flood of new victims could run into the old wall that’s stymied previous plaintiffs. Statutes of limitations in most states prohibit criminal charges or civil lawsuits alleging abuse if it happened too long ago (the time limits are different from state to state).

Beyond the fights on multiple fronts, Anderson continues to press a long-shot lawsuit against the Vatican itself.

As he waits for an expected appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, he’s preparing a list of Vatican leaders he’d like to depose.

Who else among the Vatican hierarchy would Anderson like to depose? “All of them,” he said. What about the pope? “You better believe it.”

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Source:http://www.sctimes.com/article/20090518/NEWS01/105180046/1009/As+abuse+scandals+dim++St.+Paul+lawyer+keeps+suing

Note: Bolds and Highlights added for emphasis. Blogman.

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Archbishop Honored By Franciscan University


Archbishop Honored By Franciscan University
Posted Friday, May 15, 2009 ; 09:34 PM
Updated Saturday, May 16, 2009 ; 08:38 AM



Franciscan University Presents Honorary Degree to Archbishop of Westminster

STEUBENVILLE -- At a May 13 event in Rome, Franciscan University of Steubenville presented an honorary doctorate in Christian letters to Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, archbishop emeritus of Westminster, England, for his work promoting Christian unity and Christian culture in an increasingly secular world.


“Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor has worked with patient resolve and charity to heal longstanding divisions in the Church in Britain and around the world,” said Father Terence Henry, TOR, president of Franciscan University. “He has also consistently reminded Christians not only in Britain, but throughout Europe, of the pivotal importance of faith as the basis of all culture and urged them to bring their faith into public debates as the only true means of achieving the common good. Franciscan University is proud to honor Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor for his exemplary service to the Church and society.”

A priest for over 50 years, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor was ordained bishop of the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton in 1977. He served as chairman of the Bishops’ Committee for Europe (1978-1983), chairman of the Committee for Christian Unity (1983-2000), chairman of the Department for Mission and Unity (1994-2000), and co-chairman of the Anglican and Roman Catholic International Commission (1982-2000) among other leadership roles. He became archbishop of Westminster on March 22, 2000, was elected president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales in November 2000, and created a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in February 2001. He has served as a member of four Vatican offices including the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Pope Benedict XVI accepted Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor's resignation from the See of Westminster on April 3, 2009.

In recognition of his work for Christian unity, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor received a doctorate of divinity from the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. George Carey. He also holds the distinction of being the first member of the Catholic hierarchy since 1680 to be invited to deliver a sermon to an English monarch. Queen Elizabeth II issued the invitation in January 2002, and she was present along with members of her family and household when Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor preached during the Anglican morning service at her country residence in Norfolk.

Father Henry presented the Franciscan University honorary doctorate at a reception and dinner hosted by His Excellency Francis Campbell, British ambassador to the Holy See, at his residence in Rome.

William Joseph Cardinal Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, accepted the degree on behalf of Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, who had been hospitalized the week prior to the event and was unable to attend. Cardinal Levada read comments from Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, thanking Franciscan University for “this very kind and generous gesture” and expressing his hope that he can visit Steubenville personally in the near future “to experience my new alma mater.”

Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor also noted, “The witness that Steubenville gives is so necessary in today’s world. You, like St. Francis, are committed to excellence, but excellence in the broadest sense—morally, spiritually, and intellectually. That formation is at the heart of what it means to be a Catholic college or university. Equipped with that sound formation, the graduates of Steubenville are found across the world in many walks of life where they are able to give witness.”

Dr. Robert Filby, executive vice president; Dr. Max Bonilla, vice president for Academic Affairs; John Magee, director of the Rome Program; trustee Theresa Collins; and former trustee Barbara Henkels also represented Franciscan University at the event.




Purpose of the prophecies of the Bible


Purpose of the prophecies of the Bible

"We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 1st Peter 1:19-21. King James Version.

Prophecy is intended to provide information to the children of God in all ages and to serve as a guide in spiritual matters. Prophecy is an additional blessing to God's people of all times because it reveals the workings of the evil one and the provisions of deliverance that God has prepared. Prophecy informs us of the purpose for our existence here on earth, the love of God for His creation and the special provisions He has made for those who love Him. Prophecy exposes the designs, workings, and snares of the adversary and the comfort that God will give to His followers. Prophecy is provided by Jehovah through Jesus Christ to give light to make His servants wise, concerning the troubled nations, the work of the apostate church, the conditions that will precede the second return of Jesus Christ and the deliverance that God has in store for those who love Him. Some books of prophecy that are within the Bible are as follows: Genesis, Exodus, Ezra, Esther, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, Matthew, John, Revelation.

The name Babylon is of great prophetic significance for this time of earth's history. First it is to remind us of the evils to be exhibited against Almighty God and His followers on earth, as was in the past. Secondly, the names Babylon and Israel will serve as identifying marks to separate the righteous from the unrighteous groups of humanity, prior to the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thirdly, amidst the difficulty, persecution or tribulation to be brought against the true followers of Christ in the future, God gives comfort and assurance of our victorious and eternal deliverance from the enemy.

In order to penetrate the incontestable applications of the prophetic passages of intelligence, only those people who are guided by the Holy Spirit of truth will unearth the symbols and metaphorical importance.

Ancient Babylon, under the leadership of King Nebuchadnezzar, was an idolatrous nation. Its name originated out of confusion and was the dwelling place of demons. The inhabitants of Babylon were a people of rebllion against Almighty God and a persecutor to all people and servants of God. The laws of Babylon stood in defiance to the laws of God Almighty. Babylon made an image for all people to be diverted from the worship and law of Almighty God and death was the punishment for those who disobeyed its law. The ancient power of Babylon was symbolized by a beast of prey. God brought deliverance to His people that were held captive in Babylon, through God's Anointed King from the East. The power of Babylon was also symbolized as a Woman. All these prophetic features and characterization of ancient Babylon versus ancient Israel are to be repeated in the near future between the two divisions of humanity. This is one of the great episode given by Jesus Christ and taught by the Holy Spirit, in the book of Revelation. Isaiah 45:1-4. Daniel 2 and 3 and Revelation 13 through Revelation 21.

(1) Through the prophecy of Daniel chapter seven, Jehovah has revealed to His people the end of all world powers and their replacement by His everlasting kingdom. (2) God has exposed the craftiness and workings of the forces of opposition against His people and His eternal kingdom . (3) The Godhead has shown through the prophecy of Daniel, that the powers of rebellion and blasphemy against Jehovah are all the systems, establishments, and people who are supportive of and instruct against His law and 7th day Sabbath (SATURDAY). (4) God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have shown that the majority of the world's population of every nation will be doomed to destruction; because they have chosen to obey the world and its laws rather than God and His Law. Daniel 7:8-27. King James Version.

All true Servants and Ministers of God in these last days, will not be docile or reluctant to inform others that to reject God's Love and law in any form translate in unspeakable destruction and eternal doom for all people. Every living saved soul of these last days, will be quickened, empowered and impassioned by the saving Spirit of God to share their understanding on these matters of salvation. Saved people will know that Sunday Worship was authorized by Constantine the Roman Emperor of the Roman Beast and supported by the Papal beast (little horn) of Daniel 7:8-27 and that is why and how SUNDAY is becomes the Mark of the Beast. Revelation 14:6-12. King James Version.

When we imagine the enormous billions of religious people claiming to be christians from A.D. 311 to A.D. 2008, who have chosen to obey the law of Emperor Constantine and the traditions of the Apostate Papal church; we can fathom the vastness of the scene of hell as others are added because they have rejected the provision made available through Jesus Christ.

Those who contemplate in spending eternity with Jesus Christ need now to concern themselves in searching out these matters so as to show appreciation for the love of God and those things that Jesus Christ has revealed in the book of Revelation.

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his servant John: Who bare record of the word of God, and of all the things that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand. Revelation 1: 1-3. King James Version.

When people are taught to reject the law of God, they fail to understand that it was Jesus Christ in person that wrote the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. It was Jesus Christ that did write the ten commandments with his finger on two tables of stone. Those who fail to understand the saying of Jesus Christ and apply it to their lives accordingly will not spend eternity with Him.

" The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath." Mark 2:27,28. King James Version.

"And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandments, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it. 2 John 6. King James Version.

"And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." 1 John :2 3-5. King James Version.

Through the prophecy, God's love and mercy are manifested to all who love Him. These prophecies enable God's children to be conversant of the workings and snares of the adversary through the earthly agencies. They are also made aware of God's provision for those who love Him. Bible prophecy inform us that Apostate people will never receive the blessing because their minds are blinded, due to the hardness of their hearts, greed and sin. These apostate ones will read the prophecies and fail to understand the spiritual issue. Some will listen to the presentations of the end time prophecies and not see God's light because spiritual things are only spiritually discerned. Others will learn of these prophecies and fail to apply them in their lives. Revelation 1:1-3. King James Version.


Source:http://godcallsforyou.org/prophecy.html



That ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will

(Courtesy) Illustration:http://irishcalvinist.omahabiblechurch.org:90/files/2008/07/colossians-1.9-12.jpg

Colossians 1


1Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother,

2To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,

4Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints,

5For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;

6Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth:

7As ye also learned of Epaphras our dear fellowservant, who is for you a faithful minister of Christ;

8Who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.

9For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

10That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

11Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;

12Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:

13Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

14In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

15Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

16For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

17And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

18And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

19For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;

20And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

21And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled

22In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:

23If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;

24Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church:

25Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God;

26Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:

27To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

28Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:

29Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily
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Note: ITALICS ADDED.
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Monday, May 18, 2009

Democracy Day was the center of this year's International Leadership Assembly.



The Gamaliel Platform was the focus.Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser and assistant to the president for intergovernmental relations and public liaison addresses over 2,500 people who joined us for Democracy Day's culminating event the “Realizing the Promise Forum.If you wonder if your presence at Democracy Day made any difference, Read the news more
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Gamaliel and the Barack Obama Connection


Barack H. Obama, former GAMALIEL ORGANIZER is the 44th President of the United States!Mr. President, THANK YOU for ORGANIZING HOPE for America and the World!




by Gregory A. Galluzzo

President elect Barack Obama has throughout his political career made repeated references to his time as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. It is important that we all understand the connection between Barack and Gamaliel. In l980 Mary Gonzales and I created the United Neighborhood Organization of Chicago.

In l982 we decided that we needed some expertise from someone who had done faith based community organizing. A person who had worked as such an organizer in Illinois and in Pennsylvania approached me about joining our organizing team. His name was Jerry Kellman. Jerry helped Mary and myself become better organizers. While he was working for us, he connected with a group called the Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC) operating on the South Side in the South Suburbs of Chicago, and in Indiana. CCRC had been formed in response to the massive shut down of major industry and the resulting job loss and all of the concomitant social tragedies.

Jerry and I reached an understanding that we would support his work in the South Suburbs so that he could become director of his own project. It was Jerry Kellman who put an ad in the New York Times about an organizing position in the Chicago area. Barack responded; Jerry interviewed him and offered him a position. Barack accepted. Almost at this very time, Jerry propositioned an old friend of his to return to Chicago from Texas and work with him in this new organizing venture. His friend was Mike Kruglik. Mike and Jerry were the first mentors of Barack in organizing.

CCRC, which spanned communities in Northwest Indiana, the South Suburbs and parts of the City of Chicago proved to be unwieldy. Jerry and I decided to split it into three parts. Barack would work to found a new independent project in the South side of Chicago, Mike Kruglik would be the director of the South Suburban Action Conference and Jerry Kellman would develop organizing in Northwest Indiana. At that point Jerry asked me to become Barack’s consultant.

And at this time we were just creating the Gamaliel Foundation. I met with Barack on a regular basis as he incorporated the Developing Communities Project, as he moved the organization into action and as he developed the leadership structure for the organization. He would write beautiful and brilliant weekly reports about his work and the people he was engaging.

When Barack decided to go to Harvard Law School, he approached John McKnight, a professor at Northwestern and a Gamaliel Board member for a letter of recommendation. When Barack was leaving he made sure that Gamaliel was the formal consultant to the organization that he had created and to the staff that he had hired.

Barack has acknowledged publicly that he had been the director of a Gamaliel affiliate. He has supported Gamaliel throughout the years by conducting training both at the National Leadership Training events and at the African American Leadership Commission. He has also attended our public meetings.


We are honored and blessed by the connection between Barack and Gamaliel.


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Senator Stealth


How to advance radical causes when no one's looking

By Stanley Kurtz
Posted: Tuesday, September 2, 2008


ARTICLE

National Review Vol. LX, No. 16
Publication Date: September 1, 2008

After hearing about Barack Obama's ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Fr. Michael Pfleger, and the militant activists of ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), it should be clear to everyone that his extremist roots run deep. But the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has yet another connection with the world of far-Left radicalism. Obama has long been linked -- through foundation grants, shared political activism, collaboration on legislation and tactics, and mutual praise and support -- with the Chicago-based Gamaliel Foundation, one of the least known yet most influential national umbrella groups for church-based "community organizers."

The same separatist, anti-American theology of liberation that was so boldly and bitterly proclaimed by Obama's pastor is shared, if more quietly, by Obama's Gamaliel colleagues. The operative word here is "quietly." Gamaliel specializes in ideological stealth, and Obama, a master student of Gamaliel strategy, shows disturbing signs of being a sub rosa radical himself. Obama's legislative tactics, as well as his persistent professions of non-ideological pragmatism, appear to be inspired by his radical mentors' most sophisticated tactics. Not only has Obama studied, taught, and apparently absorbed stealth techniques from radical groups like Gamaliel and ACORN, but in his position as a board member of Chicago's supposedly nonpartisan Woods Fund, he quietly funneled money to his radical allies -- at the very moment he most needed their support to boost his political career. It's high time for these shadowy, perhaps improper, ties to receive a dose of sunlight.

The connections are numerous. Gregory Galluzzo, Gamaliel's co-founder and executive director, served as a trainer and mentor during Obama's mid-1980s organizing days in Chicago. The Developing Communities Project, which first hired Obama, is part of the Gamaliel network. Obama became a consultant and eventually a trainer of community organizers for Gamaliel. (He also served as a trainer for ACORN.) And he has kept up his ties with Gamaliel during his time in the U.S. Senate.

The Gamaliel connection appears to supply a solution to the riddle of Obama's mysterious political persona. On one hand, he likes to highlight his days as a community organizer -- a profession with proudly radical roots in the teachings of Chicago's Saul Alinsky, author of the highly influential text Rules for Radicals. Obama even goes so far as to make the community-organizer image a metaphor for his distinctive conception of elective office. On the other hand, Obama presents himself as a post-ideological, consensus-minded politician who favors pragmatic, common-sense solutions to the issues of the day. How can Obama be radical and post-radical at the same time? Perhaps by deploying Gamaliel techniques. Gamaliel organizers have discovered a way to fuse their Left-extremist political beliefs with a smooth, non-ideological surface of down-to-earth pragmatism: the substance of Jeremiah Wright with the appearance of Norman Vincent Peale. Could this be Obama's secret?

FROM REVELATION TO REVOLUTION
Before outlining Gamaliel's techniques of political stealth, we need to identify the views that they are camouflaging. These can be found in Dennis Jacobsen's book Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing. Jacobsen is the pastor of Incarnation Lutheran Church in Milwaukee and director of the Gamaliel National Clergy Caucus. Jacobsen's book, which is part of the first-year reading list for new Gamaliel organizers, lays out the underlying theology of Gamaliel's activities. While Jacobsen's book was published in 2001, it is based on presentations Jacobsen has been making at Gamaliel's clergy-training center since 1992 and clearly has Galluzzo's endorsement. So while we cannot be sure that Obama has read or taught Doing Justice, the book certainly embodies a political perspective to which Obama's more than 20 years of friendship with Galluzzo, and his stint as a Gamaliel instructor, would surely have exposed him.

In Jacobsen's conception, America is a sinful and fallen nation whose pervasive classism, racism, and militarism authentic Christians must constantly resist. Drawing on the Book of Revelation, Jacobsen exhorts, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! . . . Come out of her, my people, so that you do not take part in her sins." The United States, Jacobsen maintains, employs nationalism, propaganda, racism, bogus "civil religion," and class enmity to bolster its entrenched and oppressive corporate system. Authentic Christians forced to live in such a nation can "come out of Babylon," says Jacobsen, only by entering into "a perpetual state of internal exile."

Of course, many believers do feel at home in the United States, but according to Jacobsen, these inauthentic and misguided Christians have been lulled into the false belief that the United States is somehow different from other countries -- that it stands as a genuine defender of freedom and democracy. According to Jacobsen, the desire of most Americans to create a safe, secure life for themselves and their families constitutes an unacceptable emotional distancing from the sufferings of the urban poor. Jacobsen says that whenever he feels himself seduced by the American dream of personal security -- this "unconscionable removal from the lives of those who suffer" -- he rejects its pull as the deplorable "encroachment of America on my soul." To "feel at home in the United States," maintains Jacobsen, is not only to fall victim to a scarcely disguised form of political despotism; it is to betray Christianity itself.

Although Jacobsen acknowledges that the sufferings of the poor in America do not quite rise to the level of the Nazi Holocaust, he nonetheless finds a similarity: "The accommodation and silence of the church amidst Nazi atrocities are paralleled by the accommodation and silence of the church in this country amidst a calculated war against the poor." He recounts being present at the Pentagon "to fast and vigil with a group of religious resisters against the madness of nuclear build-up and militarism generated in that place" and is horrified when he sees that many in the American military actually think of themselves as Christians. For Jacobsen, this means that the church has "aligned itself with oppressive forces and crucified its Lord anew."

Jacobsen has a low opinion of the food pantries, homeless shelters, and walk-a-thons that make up so much religious charitable activity in the United States. All that charity, says Jacobsen, tends to suppress the truth that the system itself is designed to benefit the prosperous and keep the poor down. He complains: "The Christians who are so generous with food baskets at Thanksgiving or with presents for the poor at Christmas often vote into office politicians whose policies ignore or crush those living in poverty." "Most churches do not operate on the basis of healthy agitation," he says, but instead "on the basis of manipulation, authoritarianism, or guilt-tripping."

The solution, says Jacobsen, is community organizing: "Metropolitan organizing offers a chance to end the warfare against the poor and to heal the divisions of class and race that separate this sick society." "Militant mass action . . . fueled by righteous anger," he maintains, offers authentic community, and therefore "the possibility of fulfillment in a vacuous society." He continues: "If the pain and human degradation all around us doesn't stir up within us sufficient anger to want to shake the foundations of this society, then it's probably best for us to go back to playing church."

Other than the sense of community that is generated by militant struggle, what does Jacobsen offer as the cure for America's ills? He is short on detail here, but there are tantalizing hints. Jacobsen invokes the communal property and absence of private ownership that prevailed among early Christians as a possible model. Despite his initial skepticism regarding such selflessness, says Jacobsen, he has seen this sort of "radical sharing of limited resources" on a trip to a poor African church in Tanzania. Unfortunately, says Jacobsen, "the church in the United States lacks community. The American church by and large is privatistic, insular, and individualistic. It reflects American culture."

These, then, are the beliefs at the spiritual heart of the Gamaliel Foundation's community-organizing efforts. They show clear echoes of Jeremiah Wright's and James Cone's black-liberation theology, and it's evident that Obama has an affinity for organizations that embody this point of view. But a question arises. Gamaliel's goal is to build church-based coalitions capable of wielding power on behalf of the poor. These congregation-based organizations are supposed to counterbalance and undercut America's oppressive power structures. Yet if most American Christians are deluded servants of a sinful and oppressive system, how can they be molded into a majority coalition for change? Given the privatistic, insular, and individualistic character of American culture, theological frankness might backfire and drive away potential allies, exactly as happened with Reverend Wright. Thus arises the need for stealth.

FAKE RIGHT, GO LEFT
It might have been all but impossible to penetrate the strategic thinking of Obama's cohorts if not for the fortuitous 2008 publication of Organizing Urban America: Secular and Faith-based Progressive Movements, by Rutgers political scientist Heidi Swarts. This is the first book-length study of the organizing tactics and political ideologies of Gamaliel and ACORN, the two groups to which Obama's community-organizing ties are closest. Swarts's study focuses on Gamaliel and ACORN in St. Louis, but given the degree of national coordination by both groups, the carry-over of her findings to Chicago is bound to be substantial. Because Swarts is highly sympathetic to the community-organizing groups she studies, she was granted an unusual degree of access to strategic discussions during her period of fieldwork.

Swarts calls groups like ACORN and (especially) Gamaliel "invisible actors," hidden from public view because they often prefer to downplay their efforts, because they work locally, and because scholars and journalists pay greater attention to movements with national profiles (like the Sierra Club or the Christian Coalition). Congregation-based community organizations like Gamaliel, by contrast, are often invisible even at the local level. A newspaper might report on a demonstration led by a local minister or priest, for example, without noticing that the clergyman in question is part of the Gamaliel network. "Though often hidden from view," says Swarts, "leaders have intentionally and strategically organized these movements that appear to well up and erupt from below."

Although Gamaliel and ACORN have significantly different tactics and styles, Swarts notes that their political goals and ideologies are broadly similar. Both groups press the state for economic redistribution. The tactics of Gamaliel and ACORN have been shaped in a "post-Alinsky" era of welfare reform and conservative resurgence, posing a severe challenge to those who wish to expand the welfare state. The answer these activists have hit upon, says Swarts, is to work incrementally in urban areas, while deliberately downplaying the far-Left ideology that stands behind their carefully targeted campaigns.

While ACORN's membership is fairly homogeneous, consisting chiefly of inner-city blacks and Hispanics, congregation-based community organizations like the Gamaliel Foundation tend to have more racially, culturally, and politically mixed constituencies. The need to overcome these divisions and gather a broad coalition behind its hard-Left agenda has pushed Gamaliel to develop what Swarts calls an "innovative cultural strategy." Because of the suspicions that blue-collar members might harbor toward its elite, liberal leaders, Gamaliel's main "ideological tactic," says Swarts, is to present its organizers as the opposite of radical, elite, or ideological. As Swarts explains, they deliberately refrain from using leftist jargon like "racism," "sexism," "classism," "homophobia," "oppression," or "multiple oppressions" in front of ordinary members -- even though, amongst themselves, Gamaliel's organizers toss around this sort of lingo with abandon, just as Jacobsen does in his book.

Swarts supplies a chart listing "common working-class perceptions of liberal social movements" on one side, while displaying on the other side Gamaliel organizers' tricky tactics for getting around them. To avoid seeming like radicals or "hippies left over from the sixties," Gamaliel organizers are careful to wear conventional clothing and conduct themselves with dignity, even formality. Since liberal social movements tend to come off as naïve and idealistic, Gamaliel organizers make a point of presenting their ideas as practical, pragmatic, and down-to-earth. When no one else is listening, Gamaliel organizers may rail at "racism," "sexism," and "oppressive corporate systems," but when speaking to their blue-collar followers, they describe their plans as "common sense solutions for working families."

Although the Gamaliel agenda is deeply collectivist and redistributionist, organizers are schooled to frame their program in traditional American, individualist terms. As Swarts puts it:

What makes [Gamaliel's] ideology liberal rather than conservative is that it advocates not private or voluntary solutions but collective public programs. They seek action from the state: social welfare programs, redistribution, or regulation. . . . But publicly [Gamaliel and other congregation-based groups] usually emphasize individual responsibility on the part of authorities.

What Gamaliel really wants, in other words, is for the public as a whole to fork over funds to the government, but they're careful to frame this demand as a call for "personal responsibility" by particular government officials.

The relative homogeneity of ACORN's membership allows it to display its radicalism more openly. According to Swarts, ACORN members think of themselves as "oppositional outlaws" and "militants unafraid to confront the powers that be." Yet even ACORN has a deeper, hidden ideological dimension. "Long-term ACORN organizers . . . tend to see the organization as a solitary vanguard of principled leftists," says Swarts, while ordinary members rarely think in these overtly ideological terms; for them, it's more about attacking specific problems. In general, ACORN avoids programmatic statements. During a 1980 effort to purge conservatives from its ranks, however, the organization did release a detailed political platform -- which Swarts calls "a veritable laundry list of progressive positions."

Although ACORN's radicalism is somewhat more frank than Gamaliel's, ACORN has an "innovative cultural strategy" of its own. ACORN's radicalism is incremental; it's happy to work toward ambitious long-term goals through a series of baby steps. For example, although ACORN has fought for "living wage" laws in several American cities, these affect only the small fraction of the workforce employed directly by city governments. The real purpose of ACORN's urban living-wage campaigns, says Swarts, is not economic but political. ACORN's long-term goal is an across-the-board minimum-wage increase at the state and federal levels. The public debate spurred by local campaigns is meant to prepare the political ground for ACORN's more ambitious political goals, and to build up membership in the meantime.

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS
Throughout his career, Obama has drawn on all of these strategies. In Illinois's Republican-controlled state senate, Obama specialized in incremental legislation, often drawn up in collaboration with groups like Gamaliel and ACORN. His tiny, targeted expansions of government-financed health care, for example, were designed to build political momentum for universal health care. And his claim to be a "common-sense pragmatist," rather than a leftist ideologue, comes straight out of the Gamaliel playbook.

New evidence now ties Obama still more closely to both organizations. Not only was Obama a trainer for Gamaliel and ACORN, he appears to have used his influence to secure a major increase in funding for both groups -- arguably stretching the bounds of propriety in the process.

In 2005, the year after Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, the Washington, D.C.–based Center for Community Change released a report titled "Promising Practices in Revenue Generation for Community Organizing." One of the report's authors was Jean Rudd, Obama's friend and the president of the Woods Fund during Obama's years on that foundation's board. Buried deep within the report lies the story of Obama's role in expanding the Woods Fund's financial support for groups like Gamaliel and ACORN.

Since the start of his organizing career, Obama was recognized by the Woods Fund as "a great analyst and interpreter of organizing," according to the 2005 report. Initially an adviser, Obama became a Woods Fund board member, and finally board chairman, serving as a key advocate of increased funding for organizing during that period. In 1995, the Woods Fund commissioned a special evaluation of its funding for community organizing -- a report that eventually recommended a major expansion of financial support. Obama chaired a committee of organizers that advised the Woods Fund on this important shift.

The committee's report, "Evaluation of the Fund's Community Organizing Grant Program," is based on interviews with all the big names in Obama's personal organizer network. Greg Galluzzo and other Gamaliel Foundation officials were consulted, as were several ACORN organizers, including Madeline Talbott, Obama's key ACORN contact. Talbott, an expert on ACORN's tactics of confrontation and disruption, is quoted more often than any other organizer in the report, sometimes with additional comments from Obama himself. The report holds up Gamaliel and ACORN as models for other groups and supports Talbott's call for "‘a massive infusion of resources' to make organizing a truly mass-based movement."

Support from the Woods Fund had importance for these groups that went way beyond the money itself. Since community organizers often use confrontation, intimidation, and "civil disobedience" in the service of their political goals, even liberal foundations sometimes find it difficult to fund them without risking public criticism. As the report puts it: "Some funders . . . are averse to confrontational tactics, and are loathe [sic] to support organizing for that reason. They essentially equate organizing with the embarrassment of their business and government associates." The Woods Fund is both highly respected and one of the few foundations to consistently support community organizing, so its money acts as a kind of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, providing political cover for other foundations interested in funding the hard Left. Obama apparently sought to capitalize on this effect, not only by expanding the Woods Fund's involvement in organizing, but by distributing the Woods report to a national network of potential funders.

Formally, the Woods Fund claims to be "non-ideological." According to the report: "This stance has enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government 'establishments,' without undue risk of being criticized for partisanship." Yet ACORN received substantial funding from Woods, apparently aided by Obama's internal advocacy, and we now know that ACORN members have played key roles as volunteer ground troops in Obama's various political campaigns. That would seem to raise the specter of partisanship.

A 2004 article in Social Policy by Chicago ACORN leader Toni Foulkes, titled "Case Study: Chicago -- The Barack Obama Campaign," explains that, given Obama's long and close relationship to ACORN, "it was natural for many of us to be active volunteers" in Obama's campaigns. Perhaps ACORN volunteers observed the technical legalities and helped Obama merely in their capacity as private citizens. Even so, it seems at least possible that Obama used his position at a supposedly nonpartisan foundation to direct money to an allegedly nonpartisan group, in pursuit of what were in fact nakedly partisan ends.

Given Obama's political aspirations, it's notable that the focus of his Woods Fund report is its call for "improving the tie between organizing and policy making" and shifting organizing's focus from local battles to "citywide or statewide coalitions." The report boldly criticizes Saul Alinsky himself for being excessively focused on local issues, complaining that "he did not seek to fundamentally upset the distribution of power in the wider society."

The ultimate goal of all these efforts -- fundamental disruption of America's power structure, and economic redistribution along race, poverty, and gender lines -- is entirely compatible with the program outlined by Dennis Jacobsen in Doing Justice. Obama could hardly have been unfamiliar with the general drift of Gamaliel ideology, especially given his reputation as an analyst of community organizing and his supervision of a comprehensive review of the field.

Even after becoming a U.S. senator, Obama has maintained his ties to the Gamaliel Foundation. According to an October 2007 report for the University of California by Todd Swanstrom and Brian Banks, "it is almost unheard of for a U.S. Senator to attend a public meeting of a community organization, but Senator Obama attended a Gamaliel affiliate public meeting in Chicago." Given this ongoing contact, given the radicalism of Gamaliel's core ideology, given Obama's close association with Gamaliel's co-founder, Gregory Galluzzo, given Obama's role as a Gamaliel consultant and trainer, and given Obama's outsized role in channeling allegedly "nonpartisan" funding to Gamaliel affiliates (and to his political ground troops at ACORN), some questions are in order. Obama needs to detail the nature of his ties to both Gamaliel and ACORN, and should discuss the extent of his knowledge of Gamaliel's guiding ideology. Ultimately, we need to know if Obama is the post-ideological pragmatist he sometimes claims to be, or in fact a stealth radical.

-- Mr. Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center